Does 5160 need to be hardened and tempered? Isnt it already?

E

eastcoast101

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Sep 22, 2015
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Hey,
I am gonna start a small knife project soon and I am not sure how to proceed. I have plenty of spring steel from a chevy laying around and some templates and I want to make a great knife. I have never done this before and I am excited about the challenge.

I plan to cut out the knife and profile on a bench grinder.

From my understanding spring steel is already hardened and tempered so I am unsure if I need to harden and temper it myself.

Will the cutting and profiling affect the hardening and tempering of the steel?

I would greatly appreciate any info from you guys. Please have hands on experience because I need all the info I can get get!

Thanks guys!

Also, can anyone share some templates of really great designs that are proven? I am looking for bushcraft and japanese style (eg. Kwaiken) knives in particular but any proven design will do!
 
If you are making a spring, it's already heat treated.
But, you're making a knife, aren't you? It will need to be heat treated as a knife.
 
There is a bunch of information in the stickies that you should read first. But a couple of things:

A.) Never assume scrap metal is any particular alloy. Always do a hardening test on a sample piece before you invest a lot of time. I just helped a blacksmith build a knife for his grandson. He had originally forged one from a lawnmower blade and wanted help refining it and heat treating it. I heated and quenched a test piece in canola, which I normally harden with, and a file still bit into it as easily as when it was annealed. I tried again in water, and it hardened a little, but the file would still bite. We started over from scratch with some brand new 5160 from Aldo Bruno. I've had similar things happen with springs, though with domestic vehicle leaf springs you have a much better chance of good steel than some of the other common scrap steels used to make knives.

B.) Always assume you are going to need to heat treat a blade. Give it two or three normalization cycles to get the steel in a good starting point. Harden and temper appropriate to the alloy (or assumed alloy) and usage.
 
^^^that. Always test a piece BEFORE you put any time into the real workpiece. Otherwise this sort of thing happens:
View attachment 579237
About 20 years ago, piece of buggy spring. Oil quench, nothin'. Brine quench, PLINK. Adios 22 hours of my life...
 
Assuming your leaf springs were blade worthy and didn't have any cracks, to answer your question, yes they are already heat treated. But since they are heat treated you won't be able to shape or grind the metal very easily. You will want to soften the metal through annealing - heat to nonmagnetic and cool very slowly in a bucket of ashes or other insulator. Then you cut, drill, and grind out a knife (I would recommend that you use files rather than a bench grinder as I guarantee that you won't be satisfied with the results from a bench grinder). Once the knife is shaped, then you re-heat treat it and as others have previously said, that's a hit and miss since you don't know what the steel content is. You would be WAY ahead of the game by buying a piece of annealed steel (knife steel, not home depot type of welding steel) and having someone else to heat treat it.
 
Thanks I appreciate your response!

jawilder said:
Assuming your leaf springs were blade worthy and didn't have any cracks, to answer your question, yes they are already heat treated. But since they are heat treated you won't be able to shape or grind the metal very easily. You will want to soften the metal through annealing - heat to nonmagnetic and cool very slowly in a bucket of ashes or other insulator. Then you cut, drill, and grind out a knife (I would recommend that you use files rather than a bench grinder as I guarantee that you won't be satisfied with the results from a bench grinder). Once the knife is shaped, then you re-heat treat it and as others have previously said, that's a hit and miss since you don't know what the steel content is. You would be WAY ahead of the game by buying a piece of annealed steel (knife steel, not home depot type of welding steel) and having someone else to heat treat it.
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